1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to material carriers and, more particularly, is directed towards a low profile grain trailer which utilizes both gravity and a mechanical assist for dumping the contents thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art is replete with material carriers, such as grain trailers, which are emptied through an opening formed in the lower portion thereof under the influence of gravitational forces. Exemplary U.S. patents of which I am aware include Tucker (U.S. Pat. No. 3,521,930), McCurdy (U.S. Pat. No. 2,827,204), Birdsall (U.S. Pat. No. 3,700,293) and Meharry (U.S. Pat. No. 3,337,068).
The Tucker patent (U.S. Pat. No. 3,521,930) for example, describes a grain trailer which includes side and end walls that slope downwardly towards a centrally formed opening in order to provide a gravity feed for the material contained therein.
Each of the above-cited prior art gravity beds are similar in that they have a relatively high profile in order to provide the necessary angular inclination of the side walls thereof incident to a 100% gravity feed operation.
Such high profiles result in a high weight distribution of the load relative to the road and thus may give rise to instabilities or require special reinforcing and/or stabilizing means in order to properly and safely distribute the load. Such stabilizing and/or reinforcing structures tend to be costly and hence should be avoided if at all possible.
One of the ways to perhaps avoid such costs and simultaneously improve the weight distribution of the load would be to lower the profile of such grain trailers by lowering the angle of inclination of its side walls. However, in present designs of grain trailers, a lowering of the profile would lead to a situation where the material contained therein would not be entirely emtied under the force of gravity, such that some type mechanical assist may be necessary.
While the prior art does teach the utilization of various mechanical assist devices that augment the normal gravity emptying of a container (see, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,942,581; 2,624,479; and 3,747,980), none suggest the unique vibration imparting assembly, nor its use in combination with a low profile grain trailer of the present invention, in the manner which is to be described in more detail hereinafter.